Every research deserves a place in the sun. Every explorer deserves to bask in the glory. And every discovery must reveal its true potential. The first step in this direction is to get noticed.
Quality research requires a lot of resources, time, and special conditions. Social media, which are now extremely popular, can become both a source of obtaining valuable data and a show window to display final statistics and outcomes. It is a powerful tool for communicating with the world, which was grossly underestimated by the academic community at first. Nowadays, many scientists, educational institutions, companies, and non-commercial organizations have begun to turn to social networks as a cost-effective and comprehensive channel for sharing new information regarding a particular field of study. There are many reasons for using them:
- More people, including from your professional circle, will learn about your research.
- The number of citations will increase to contribute to your expertise and reputation.
- You will be able to receive invitations to significant meetings, forums, and conferences.
- You can easily find collaborators for future studies among your followers.
Moreover, with the help of social media platforms, you can make your research accessible to people of different ages, social, groups, interests, and locations, as well as gain the audience’s support and track reactions to your research.
So, How To…?
Once you have decided to promote your research on social media, you need to prepare a post that will “hook” the audience. Since people scroll through their feeds frantically and skip hundreds of posts every day, you need to get them interested right away.
Create Infographics
First of all, the human brain tends to focus on bright colors, catchy designs, and an abundance of movements. Here you may feel confused since bright pictures are applicable when you are trying to create a postcard rather than conveying complicated notions and ideas. Fortunately, you are not limited in your choices of formats suitable for various social networking platforms. So, you can post an infographic, which is a great way to present information. Facts and figures can be creatively transformed into eye-catching and easy-to-understand graphs, diagrams, and tables and also supplemented with pictures and photographs. If done with flair, this combo will spark a vivid interest in users and encourage them to switch to more detailed reading.
Post Videos
In addition to static pictures, you can use video materials. This format of presenting information attracts people and pushes your post to the top. Show a part of an interview with an important person in your field, record your own message with interim results, or tell users why this topic is important to you and those around you. Your lively emotions will only generate more interest and reaction.
Provide Links
At this stage, it is important to think about how to provide readers with access to the research itself. It is great when you communicate your work, but what is the point of it if users interested to get more information about your work face limited access or only a paid version? Include a link to your website in your profile header, or connect your post to an open-access journal publication, or provide contact partners for users to address to them for further information.
Cherry-pick Platforms
Use a variety of social media platforms. Please note that different generations prefer different platforms. For instance, young people spend more time on TikTok and Instagram. Mature and older people use Facebook more often. The same principle applies to the field of activity. LinkedIn is more focused on business and professional networking, while Pinterest is aimed at creative people. However, it would be smart to spread your findings through more than one platform to get a wider reach. Besides, you can avail of a richer choice of available formats, for example, by publishing a teaser in Instagram stories and complementing it with a full-scale video on YouTube.
Post Regularly
Share more often. With so much content published across social media daily, even your target audience can easily miss a message or two. So, it’s okay to announce your research more than once and duplicate the most interesting publications from time to time. Also, you can choose a specific schedule for your posts to keep your followers engaged.
And…
You are not alone. If you are just thinking about starting a study, visit related forums, join professional groups, or contact the administrators of a thematic blog and tell them about your ideas as to cooperation. Later, it will help you share your outcomes with wider communities.
